More Articles

Gen. Lew Wallace, who would later write
Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ — the book the 1959 epic movie was based on — was ordered to
Columbus on Sept. 18, 1862, to organize paroled Union soldiers into an army to fight Indians in
Minnesota.

The Ohio State Journal reported the next day: “The precise nature and requirements of his
command at this point we have not learned.” Wallace, for his part, considered the assignment an
insult and was in no hurry to share its nature.

Early in the Civil War, Union and Confederate forces “paroled” captured soldiers, letting them
return to their lines provided they promised not to fight again unless formally exchanged for an
enemy soldier.

An estimated 3,000 to 5,000 paroled Union solders were housed in squalid conditions in Columbus
in 1862.

At Camp Chase, Wallace, a Union general, wrote in his autobiography that he had the men
assembled and told them “President Lincoln had heard of their sorrowful state and sent me to
organize, pay, clothe, and put them into a new camp. Of duty in Minnesota I breathed not a
word."

Wallace ordered the men to clean up, paid them and outfitted them in new uniforms.

The first 500 were taken to Tod Barracks, near what is now the Greater Columbus Convention
Center, and told they were going to fight Indians in Minnesota.

The men — who had signed up to fight Confederates, not Indians — deserted that night, as did the
next group and the next — and the next and the next — “until at length there was nobody in Camp Tod
except officers and a few sick men,” Wallace wrote. “The rest had taken trains at stations above or
below Columbus and, with money in their pockets and good clothes to disport, were hurrying
homeward. In my opinion, it would be unfair to classify them as ordinary deserters.

“It remained for me to make report; and I did it to Secretary (of War Edwin M.) Stanton,
advising that the absconded prisoners be let alone for a time. …. The report and suggestions were
approved by the secretary.”

Suggestions for Mileposts that will run this bicentennial year can be sent to Gerald Tebben,
Box 82125, Columbus, OH 43202, or email gtebben@columbus.rr.com.